Vincent.

[VLSmith]

Hi.

So let me get the ball rolling by introducing myself. My name is Vincent and I'm a 28-year-old male suffering from anxiety disorder and perhaps a mild co-morbid depression.

Anxiety and panic attacks first hit me around the age of 21 and that lasted for a few months up to the point where I actually received counselling and for the first time learnt what anxiety disorder is and that I, in fact, wasn't going completely insane. The knowledge of that alone seemed to cure me as I went on after that living an anxiety-free life for a few years.

At the age of 25 I got hit with a second round of anxiety and panic attacks and it was more severe and lasted a lot longer. In fact, I don't think I was ever really without anxiety, but between the ages of 21 and 25 I was living mostly worry-free and just going with the flow. Or so it seemed. I am a freelance graphics and web designer so financial worry and stress has been a constant concern in my mind for as long as I can remember. As a result of freelancing I also don't have medical aid (insurance) which has also been a constant worry to me.

So here I am at the age of 28 and at the beginning of this year I hit the holy grail of anxiety and panic and for the first time depression. I was at a rock festival and there was some heavy drinking going on (don't judge me, I'm a musician and a rocker :p ) and the Monday after that weekend I experienced severe panic attacks straight from the pits of Hell. For the first week I suffered from Insomnia and couldn't sleep at all. Needless to say I felt like a zombie and I lost touch with reality. I had to take tranquilizers to sleep for the first few nights, but after those nights of good rest things started going better and I stopped taking the pills as I am very skeptical when it comes to any form of drugs. In fact I've never taken anything for anxiety disorder (apart from alcohol as a form of self-medication). Bad idea :)

I have a lot of knowledge about anxiety disorders as I've been researching it for many years as a form of self-therapy, but this experience has been so difficult for me that I am feeling out-of-body almost constantly. I question reality on a daily basis. I have since essentially quit my career as I just don't see the value in it any more. The stress associated with freelance design work has just got the better of me and I am now going to live a more relaxed life by pursuing music. I have an amazing girlfriend who has stood by me through all of this for all the years we've been together. I thank the universe for her.

So in the interest of brevity, let me get to the point.

I may be wrong, but I believe my situation is mostly existential in nature. For as long as I can remember I've been philosophising about the meaning of life and questioning the possibility of the existence of deities and whether that would have any significance on our experience we call "life". My religious views are agnostic.

The first panic attack of my current phase of anxiety was triggered when I was sitting down just wondering what nothingness must be like. I tried to imagine what there would be if reality as we know it didn't exist and when I hit that ceiling where questions cannot be answered any more, BOOM!, panic attack followed by severe anxiety and a general sense of "floating" or disassociation from reality.

The reason I mention this is because I would like to know how many others of you out there struggle with existential anxiety? Also, is my obsession with the meaning of life and worries about the afterlife a result of my experiencing general anxiety or is it the other way around? Do my existential worries trigger anxiety attacks? In other words: Do panic attacks trigger existential anxiety or does existential anxiety (worries about meaning) trigger panic attacks?

Maybe my problem is something else altogether?

Thanks for reading this and I would love to hear from other like-minded individuals.

No matter who you are, you are awesome in my books :)

Vince.

[hangingon]

I don't think the existentialism is the problem, but it may be a source of stress. When I was religious, I was stressed out about pleasing god and worried constantly about sin and felt shame about everything in my life. When I became an atheist, I felt depressed about the emptiness of it all, that there were no clear "answers" to what I should be doing. I think the atheism is bad, because I have nothing absolute to strive for and I am a big "striver", and the absence of "right" answers leaves me with endless obscure questions about what I "should" do in life, with no clear decisions. But being a Christian was also bad for me because the more I sought answers, the more depressed I got. I think my problems tend to be about worrying...lots of people say they follow Jesus, but don't do it very well and it doesn't bother them. Yet I don't see how they can be so inconsistent...I have to know it makes sense. Everything has to make sense, and this is, I believe, due to my anxiety order. When things don't make sense, when I don't have answers, I get very stressed and depressed.

[VLSmith]

forwells
Thanks so much for the welcome and that link you shared. I did a lot of reading on that site this past day and a lot of what the author says are things I've been pondering and needed to hear from someone else. Thanks! Looking forward to your other thoughts.

hangingon
Much gratitude for your post as well. You and I definitely share some common ground when it comes to matters of anxiety surrounding religion and meaning.
I was raised a fundamentalist christian by my parents who still are fundamentalist christian, but I honestly was never able to connect or experience from religion what they do. As both my siblings also went the purist charismatic christian route this obviously rapidly became a great problem for me that has, as far back as I can remember, caused severe stress in my life. The tons of research I conducted on these matters soon became a point of great conflict between my family and I and I was quickly branded the family black sheep. The irony here being that my pursuit of truth in the church and religion served only to remove me further from it.

I actually remember suffering a severe panic attack when on Christmas two years ago the whole family (including extended family) asked me to pray for dinner and I couldn't. I just walked out and started crying. I literally called to the heavens and asked God to just show me what I'm supposed to do with my life.

I've always considered myself to be agnostic, but after that event I emotionally became an atheist. And believe me, I know what you mean when you say it's depressing. Having nothing to strive for existentially has always made me stress uncontrollably. The thing is I HAVE to be sincere in my approaches to anything. I can't do the going to church thing and call myself a christian when I simply don't feel any connection to it or any of its dogmas and rituals.

I also believe that my worst enemy is worry and that my constant strive for things to make sense is what is eating me up.

Thanks so much for your response!

Much love people.

Vince.

[hangingon]

That is true for me as well. I know religion too thoroughly and objectiveley while not having it even feel real for me, so I don't feel like I can go back to it. I feel like I have been let down several times before and cannot trust it emotionally as well as rationally. I am hoping as I get my life on a more 9-5 track I can find some humanitarian work to get involved in. I tried working with developmentally disabled people in group homes, but oddly, the staff I worked with were some of the most unqualified, unfriendly people I'd ever worked with. I guess that is state services for you.

[VLSmith]

I know exactly how you feel as far as being let down by religion is concerned and I too simply cannot trust it emotionally or rationally anymore, but I also now realize that my main problem lies somewhere else. The emptiness I feel existentially does indeed trigger anxiety in me as it is a form of stress, but I am forced to ask myself why it never bothered me so much before my anxiety problem. Another source of stress earlier in my life was the adoption of a nihilistic mindset that one should always be careful of. Nothing good can come from believing that nothing in life matters and that nothing is worth living for. It's a recipe for depression and morbidity.

I found it interesting that you mentioned the humanitarian work you would like to get involved in and also that you mentioned getting your life onto a more 9 to 5 track. Both these ideas struck me in the last few months.

Would you mind elaborating?

[MaJestic]

Hi

Just been reading through your posts and i find it fascinating that i too feel the same way about 'the meaning of life' and other subjects. Im only 21 but over the past 6 months have become fascinated by astronomy, evolution and all things related to the bigger picture so to speak. I think by doing this i have managed to freak myself out a bit and started to question everything in life. I think in some respects it made me feel very insignificant in relation to evrything else that goes on around us and probably ultimately lead to me feeling anxious and a bit depressed.

[VLSmith]

Hi Jacob. Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

I've recently come to understand that one of the main causes of an anxiety disorder is stress. Now, that may sound obvious and indeed none of us on this forum need to be reminded of what stress can do over extended periods, but I never truly understood the implications of how stress affected my life. Panic attacks get triggered by stress in someone who has a high sensitivity to stressful situations. This heightened sensitivity is a symptom of anxiety disorders in general and to experience any form of stress in this sensitive state usually triggers a panic attack of which the aftermath leads to more general anxiety. It is, unfortunately, a bit of a snowball effect. The more panic attacks you experience, the more general anxiety you have to deal with which keeps you in a constant sensitive state in which more panic attacks are triggered more easily. Co-morbid conditions like depression therefore are quite common in people who go through extended periods of anxiety. But the good news is this cycle can be broken by learning to become more fearless and how to cope better with stressful situations.

So why am I mentioning all this and what does it have to do with our "meaning of life" obsessions?
Well, in my life I experience anxiety and panic attacks from merely thinking about the universe and everything, because it is something that worries me and in my heightened state of sensitivity causes enough stress to actually trigger panic attacks. I know now, however, that the main reason for my anxiety disorder was high levels of stress and emotional exhaustion, not existential thinking. I've been thinking about things like meaning and exploring existential media since my youth and believe me, I've done A LOT of research into some of the most obscure topics and it never really worried me before my days of anxiety. I know what you mean when you say it freaks you out, though, but feeling freaked out is a result of fear causing and caused by worry. Worry about the unknown which is, in essence, the fear of death.

I currently fear death simply because I don't understand our place in the grand scheme of things and there are so many strange things all around us, but I now realize that what I should be doing with my time is enjoying life and learning to relax rather than try to solve the mysteries of the universe and worry about not being able to solve them :)

Anyway, we can chat about a lot and we have time.

Take care and don't stress about your health. When I was 21 I got panic attacks from believing that I have blood clots and was going to suffer a stroke, all because I had some standard muscle cramps in my one leg for two or three days... If you're concerned, see a doctor to check you out, but if he/she tells you you're fine, don't stress about it anymore. And instead of making self-medication a habit and then stressing about it later, rather live healthier in general and get your body in shape. It's the good old "healthy body, healthy mind" thing :P

All the best! Would like to hear from you again!